SAN DIEGO –– Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and Abramson Cancer Center reported today at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research that combining two targeted therapies overcomes treatment resistance in liver cancer cell lines. The team is currently designing a trial to test the combination in patients.

Liver cancer is resistant to many chemotherapies and to cell-death inducing agents. Last year, however, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved sorafenibterm (Nexavar®) as a treatment for liver cancer after a clinical trial showed that the targeted agent prolonged survival in some patients.

Bethesda, MD (March 11, 2008) – A combined therapeutic approach of stenting and photodynamic therapy may improve survival rates for patients suffering from advanced liver bile duct cancer, according to a study published this month in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, the official journal of the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute.

Researchers in the study found that while stenting can help reinforce the bile duct to increase liver functionality, the light therapy assisted in attacking the cancer cells directly. The combined therapy led to significant reductions in mortality rates in the year following treatment, compared with stenting treatment alone.

Many scientists believe up to 40 percent of liver cancer is caused by stem cells gone wild – master cells in the organ that have lost all growth control. But, despite years spent looking, no one has ever found these liver “cancer stem cells” – or even normal stem cells in the organ. Until now.

In the February 19, 2008 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center report discovering both types of stem cells, and by comparing their genetic “signatures,” they found evidence to suggest that a new type of experimental drug now being tested in other cancers might offer benefit in treating liver cancer.

Many scientists believe up to 40 percent of liver cancer is caused by stem cells gone wild – master cells in the organ that have lost all growth control. But, despite years spent looking, no one has ever found these liver “cancer stem cells” – or even normal stem cells in the organ. Until now.

In the February 19, 2008 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center report discovering both types of stem cells, and by comparing their genetic “signatures,” they found evidence to suggest that a new type of experimental drug now being tested in other cancers might offer benefit in treating liver cancer.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--A fundamental difference in the way males and females respond to chronic liver disease at the genetic level helps explain why men are more prone to liver cancer, according to MIT researchers.

“This is the first genome-wide study that helps explain why there is such a gender effect in a cancer of a nonreproductive organ, where you wouldn't expect to see one,” said Arlin Rogers, an MIT experimental pathologist and lead author of a paper that appeared last month in the journal Cancer Research.

Men develop liver cancer at twice the rate of women in the United States. In other countries, especially in Asia, the rate for men can be eight or 10 times that for women.

BOSTON – As the incidence of liver cancer continues to grow-- fueled in large part, by rising rates of hepatitis C infections – so too does the need for tests to help diagnose the disease at an earlier stage. A study appearing in the January 15 issue of Clinical Cancer Research demonstrates that a novel mass-spectrometry based form of proteomic profiling is more accurate than traditional biomarkers in distinguishing liver cancer patients from patients with hepatitis C liver cirrhosis, particularly with regard to identifying patients with small, curable tumors. Led by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), the study could help lead to earlier diagnostic methods – and subsequent treatments -- for liver cancer.

Tampa, FL (Jan. 8, 2008) – If you have primary liver cancer that has spread to other organs or is too advanced to be treated by surgery, Moffitt Cancer Center is looking for you. You must not have had prior chemotherapyterm treatment.

Hepatocellular carcinomaterm, or primary liver cancer, is the fifth most common type of tumor. Moffitt is recruiting participants for a phase II study of the oral medication AZD6244, an experimental anti-cancer drug that may stop the growth of cancer cells. The drug is designed to block the pathway of a protein called MEK, which is important for cell survival.

DURHAM, N.C. -- A high-energy form of ultrasound imaging developed by researchers at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering produces pictures of liver tumors that are better than those made with traditional ultrasound, according to results of a clinical study.

The study suggests that the imaging method known as Acoustic Radiation Force Impulse (ARFI) ultrasound might offer a new tool for screening patients at increased risk for liver cancers, according to the researchers. They say it might also play a useful role in guiding biopsy procedures and minimally invasive therapies aimed at destroying cancerous tissues found deep in the abdomen.

Progen Pharmaceuticals Limited (NASDAQ:PGLA) today announced additional data from the Phase 2 liver cancer study of PI-88 completed earlier this year. This data was presented at the 58th Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases in Boston, USA(1). As the Phase 2 trial's study period covered 48 weeks from curative surgery, the data analysis described in this presentation was performed to evaluate the treatment's impact when patients with a low risk of experiencing a liver cancer recurrence within twelve months are removed from the analysis population. Patients were removed from the patient population if, based on published prognostic factors, they were considered likely to complete the 12 months of the study without recurrence.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. − Placing tiny radioactive spheres directly into the liver through its blood supply halted growth of tumors that had spread to the organ in 71 percent of patients tested in a small clinical trial, researchers from Mayo Clinic Jacksonville report.

They say that the technique appears to offer a treatment option for patients who develop multiple tumors in their liver from cancer metastasisterm.

“Most of these patients don’t have other effective treatment options, because surgery is not possible if there are multiple tumors in their liver,” says the study’s lead investigator, Laura Vallow, M.D. “But with this radiotherapy, no new tumors developed in patients who responded and we find this to be very encouraging.”

Nerve growth factor (NGF), as the name says, is an essential peptide factor for the growth and differentiation of neuronal cells. Therefore we can imagine that this growth factor is important for the nervous system including brain. But a recent scientific report published in the October 7 issue of the World Journal of Gastroenterology tells us another surprising and exciting discovery about this growth factor: NGF is positively related with liver cancer, the No.2 killer among all kinds of cancers in the world.

This research was collaboration among scientists from National Research Council of Italy, Marino Hospital in Rome, Regina Elena Cancer Institute in Rome, and University of Rome. This fruitful collaboration was under the leadership of Dr Annalucia Serafino, a talented biologist who has made her well-recognized reputation in cancer research and hepatitis C virus research. She is holding a senior researcher position in the national research council in Rome, which plays a similar role as the National Institutes of Health in the United States.

PITTBURGH, July 11 – Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine report a significant new advance in the search for an effective treatment for human liver cancer in the July issue of Molecular Cancer Therapeutics. Using a newly available monoclonal antibodyterm, they demonstrated significant reductions in tumor cell proliferation and survival in human and mouse hepatocellular cancer (HCC) cell lines. According to the researchers, this finding has significant implications not only for the treatment of liver cancer but for a number of different types of cancer.

Most cases of HCC are secondary to either a viral hepatitis infection or cirrhosis of the liver. Despite recent advances, it remains a disease of grim prognosis due to the poorly understood mechanism of how the disease originates and spreads. Most patients live only a short time after diagnosis.

Multiple-electrode radiofrequency ablation is a safe and effective way of treating patients with liver cancer that can be completed in less time than current ablation techniques, according to a recent study conducted by researchers at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

“One of the biggest limitations of current radiofrequency ablation techniques is the inability to effectively treat large tumors” said Paul Laeseke, PhD, lead author of the study. “Current radiofrequency ablation systems can only power one electrode and create relatively small ablation zones,” Dr. Laeseke said. Large tumors are treated by sequentially overlapping the small ablation zones--a technique that is both complicated and time consuming,” he said.

Researchers at the University of San Diego, in colloboration with researchers at Stanford, have created a new procedure correlating images of cancerous liver tissue with gene expression patterns,  which may some day allow physicians to view a CT image of a cancer tumor and discern its genetic activity. The study, designed to help doctors obtain the molecular details of a specific tumor or disease without having to do an invasive biopsy procedure, will be published online on May 21 in Nature Biotechnology.

According to principle investigator Michael Kuo, M.D., assistant professor of interventional radiology at UCSD, the study represents the convergence of two developing fields of medical research: the mapping of the human genome and advances in diagnostic imaging.